miércoles, 22 de febrero de 2017

I finish a stage and another begins - A sort of farewell

I
am taking the liberty of addressing you as such, although I do not know some of
you personally. However, that is how I feel about you after sharing with you
(by e-mail, by means of my blog or recently on Facebook, without asking for
your permission in the case of some) for quite a while some reflections,
information and adventures, based on my trade union work, along with some trade
union and political considerations.

I would now like to briefly explain why, after the reports on India,
this will be my last direct communication related to this period of my life,
which is ending after slightly more than 50 years of trade union work in the
labour sector (after participating in university trade unionism during the
previous 9 years).

Seven years ago, shortly after my 70th birthday, I retired
from an administrative point of view but continued my trade union work linked
to organised trade unionism in the Federations of CCOO (FITEQA first, and then
Industry), as well as in European and international Trade Union Federations
(now IndustriALL European Trade Union and IndustriALL Global Union). But this link
is coming to an end. This concludes quite a few years of participation in demands,
mobilisations, negotiations, trade union agreements and disagreements,
collective agreements and restructurings, of involvement in corporate social
responsibility, in global framework agreements and transnational trade union
networks.

This has been a trade union experience of extraordinary personal
interest that has also, in my opinion, proved useful in promoting collective
action to improve living and working conditions in fields ranging from the
workplace to the global world. An experience that I have recorded, out of a
sense of responsibility, in reports and comments aimed at those who had
entrusted me with a certain degree of representation to that end, and at a
wide-ranging space of action and opinion interested in such matters. Reports
and comments that were also part of my effort to better understand what I was
doing.

Below
is a brief summary of my social –mainly trade union– work during this time:

·1957-1961 and 1964-65. Barcelona
School of Industrial Engineers (ETSIIB): Course adviser, Secretary of the
Faculty Chamber of the SEU (official Spanish student union during Franco’s
regime), person in charge of the Culture and Library Committee, being elected
for all of this by my fellow students. Co-founder in 1958 of the extra-legal
Inter-Faculty Committee of the University of Barcelona (the “Inter,” forerunner
of the University of Barcelona’s Democratic Union of Students or SDEUB). I
later went back to university, from 1980 to 1984, to study law in this case.

·1962-1964.- Exile in the German Democratic
Republic (GDR, East Germany), to escape arrest from Franco’s police and Coronel
Eymar’s Court “to repress communism and freemasonry.” I enjoyed an interesting
and frustrating experience of “real socialism” in the GDR.

·1966-1969. Participation in the Local
Workers’ Commission of Barcelona, the Chemistry Workers’ Commission, the
Democratic Association of Technicians of Catalonia attached to the CCOO.

·1969-1975. Franco’s “political-social
brigade” issued a warrant for my arrest. I had joined the “Partit Socialista
Unificat de Catalunya” (PSUC) in 1958: underground activity involved in its
Secretariat, Executive Committee and Barcelona Committee, and the Central Committee
of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). Organisation secretary in Barcelona and
the person in charge of the PSUC’s “Core of the workers’ movement”). Person in
charge of the communist cell in the SEAT company, political management of
labour action in the Besós Power Station, Hispano Olivetti, Maquinista, Baix
Llobregat, …

·1989-2016. State Chemical and Textile
Federation of CCOO (FITEQA-CCOO), then Industry (CCOO-Industry): Restructuring
(provisional downsizing plans and trade union action) of the Spanish Fertiliser
Industry and La Seda de Barcelona. Collective Bargaining Agreements and Company
Pacts: General of Chemical Industries, of Textile-Clothing and of Perfume
Industries, Michelin, Repsol, Firestone, Fertiberia, CEPSA, Carburos Metálicos,
BASF, … CSR: Inditex, Repsol, Mango, El Corte Inglés, …, State Council of
Corporate Social Responsibility (CERSE). Coordinator of the Global Framework
Agreement of FITTVC (then IndustriALL Global Union) with Inditex. This CSR work
has taken me to 15 countries in 4 continents, to visit more than 100 factories,
speaking with several hundred workers therein, with their representatives and
trade unions, seeing and becoming familiar with living and working conditions
all over the world as part of trade union action in favour of “decent work.”

This
has been a journey with the following key moments: School of Engineers and the
“Inter,” the PSUC and PCE (Barcelona and SEAT), and, as part of CCOO, the
General Agreements of the Chemistry, Textile and Fertiliser Industries and
Michelin, and the Global Framework Agreement with Inditex.

I
feel privileged to having been able to carry out and experience this work.
Thanks to it I have experienced and learned a lot of trade unionism, I have
come into contact with many people from all over the world, with many
colleagues in Spanish, European and global trade union organisations, many of
whom have become my friends.

Since
I believe I still have sufficient working capacity to do so, I have decided to
begin a new phase in my life. Now, at the beginning of 2017, I have finished
most of the organised trade union work that I have been carrying out in recent
years, mainly the coordination of the Global Framework Agreement between the
International Trade Union Federation “IndustriALL Global Union” and Inditex,
whose full responsibility has been taken over by my friend and colleague Víctor
Garrido (vgarrido@industria.ccoo.es). I will
continue collaborating with IndustriALL Global Union and CCOO-Industry in
preparing and carrying out the events to commemorate this Framework Agreement’s
tenth anniversary (in the ILO, in Madrid and in Inditex workplaces in Spain).
Such events and the congressional process of CCOO will mark the end of my
organised link with CCOO-Industry and IndustriALL Global Union. I will continue
both as a member of CCOO and collaborating with the trade union and other
groups in any way that they feel I can be useful.

The
end of my organised trade union activity will probably lead to a reduction in
the publication of notes and reports in my blog (www.iboix.blogspot.es),
since it has mainly been based on reports and comments derived from such work[1].

I
am moving back to Barcelona in late April. Until the end of my trade union work
in mid-2017, I will continue using my trade union e-mail (iboix@industria.ccoo.es), in addition
to my personal one both now and in the future: isidor.boix@gmail.com.

My
projects, once I finish my direct trade union work in mid-2017, will consist in
resuming work on my memoirs (the first part that I published, covering up to
1977, is available at Pasión por el sindicalismo - mis recuerdos,
which I plan to finish before the end of 2017. And in preparing a PhD in Law
that will be a legal and trade union reflection on globalisation, global trade
unionism and corporate social responsibility, which I expect will take me a few
years.

And then we
will see ...

Very best
wishes,

February
2017

[1] Some links in my
blog to trade union files are no longer available, due to changes in the trade
union website. You can ask me directly for any that you are interested in.